NEED HELP!! two week old budgies

[Yasmine]

Hi. So before anyone yells at me for not knowing how to take care of budgies, I just wanted to say that I did not plan on adopting any birds. A few days ago, I noticed my friend post pics of her budgies and she captioned it "someone take them or I will give them to a shelter". I don't know much about taking care of birds but I did not want them to go to a shelter where they would just go to a different home so I thought I would take them. When she dropped them off, right away I noticed the male had overgrown nails, and the female was no where to be found (later on I discovered that she was in a nesting area). Anyways, long story short, I took the male to the vet and he got his nails and beak trimmed. This is the part I need help with. As I tried to remove the female, I noticed she had three babies in there!!! (Later I was told the babies are about 1-2 weeks old) I did not want to disturb her so I left her in there and decided on taking her to the vet once her babies are weaned and then I will remove the nesting box out. Their diet includes seeds in the morning and at night and different types of dark greens like green leaf lettuce, kale, red leaf lettuce etc...Her babies look adorable! My question is 1. Can I remove the baby budgies once they get their feathers for an hour a day to spend time with them once they are three weeks old and hopefully tame them and put them back and 2. Am I doing okay in terms of feeding them and leaving the babies alone?

 

[ChristaNL]

Whoehoe...you really dove into this, straight into the deep end!
Gutsy person you!

Great you got them to the vet the moment you noticed something not really okay with them. Nice work.

In really no particulair order: no- do not take the babies out for so long- a few minutes is plenty. They need to be kept warm at that age and feed ridiculously often (by the parents) so an hour out of the nest is really waaaay too long.
(You can of course take them out a few times a day/ lol you must be an american, you all seem to be really obsessed with handling babies overhere we will do nestchecks of course and maybe a daily weiging and that will be it.)
Taming babies can just as easily been done after they emerge on their own.

You can help the parents out by providing eggfood as well- but apart from that you seem to be doing pretty well by keeping them on the diet they were used to and providing healthy greens.

The parents seem to be doing just fine, so no need to get in there with a syringe etc.. Let them do their job.
Did your friend tell you if this was their first family? Or have they had young before?

 

[Yasmine]

Thanks for your reply! And yes, I am American haha ��. She said they laid eggs prior to these but none of them were fertile. So this is her first hatching eggs. And only 3 of the 6 hatched I was told. Thanks for the reassuring words. I was afraid I was going something wrong

 

[EllenD]

If the babies are only 1-2 weeks old then they are being fed every 2 hours or so, you need to make sure that both your adult Budgies have access to plenty of seed-mix and fresh, dark leafy greens and fresh veggies ALL DAY LONG! Both the mother and father Budgie will be feeding the babies, and especially the mother, because she also made and laid the eggs, tend to lose weight, calcium, vitamins, etc. at an alarming rate while feeding babies, so they both must always have a large dish of a healthy seed-mix in their cage at all times. You don't need to put it in the nest-box, they'll both take turns sitting on the babies and eating, so just make sure there is always a large dish of seeds in their cage at all times, along with lots of dark, leafy greens and veggies.

You also must have both a Cuddlebone and a Mineral Block hanging in their cage at all times, so that they are getting plenty of Calcium, especially the mother. She'll likely start laying eggs again pretty quickly after she finishes weaning these babies, so she needs plenty of Calcium to prevent egg-binding. You can buy a Cuddlebone at pretty much any Walmart, who also sells Mineral Blocks too, or any Petco/Petsmart. And buying a bag of Qwiko Egg-Food at Petco is a good idea too, and making sure there is a small dish of that in the cage for the parents every day until they are done feeding the babies is a good idea.

As far as handling the babies, once they hit 3 weeks old you can start blocking off the nest-box when you see both parents out of it, use a piece of cardboard or something similar once you see them both out of the nest-box, so that they can't get back in while you're handling the babies. At 3 weeks you must be extremely careful and gentle, and only handle them once or twice a day each for 15 minutes or so. And then each week you increase the time you handle them/hold them/pet them, but you can't keep them outside of the nest-box for "an hour" until they are fully-feathered with their mature feathers, not just their down. Without their mature feathers they cannot regulate their body-temperatures, and that won't happen until they are around 6 weeks old. At that point they will also be starting to wean and also be ready to fledge, so a good rule to follow is once you see the babies starting to venture out of the nest-box on their own, then you can take them out for a longer time period. But in-order to hand-tame them you do want to start just holding them, petting them, and talking to them once daily, every single day, for 15 minutes each. Again, be very careful as they are going to be very fragile at 3 weeks old...Best to sit in a chair while holding them because if you drop them they'll likely die of internal bleeding.

You may also want to think about weaning the babies onto a healthy, natural-flavored pellet instead of just a seed-mix, because it's difficult for people to switch Budgies over to pellets if they are weaned onto seed-mix. Buy placing a big bowl of a healthy, natural flavored pellets (no fruit flavored pellets, too much sugar) inside of the cage when they start weaning you'll encourage them to wean onto them early, and of course you must also make sure they have access to fresh veggies while weaning too. Budgies usually start weaning around 5-6 weeks old, and are usually fully weaned between 8-10 weeks old.

When the babies are fully weaned and completely out of the nest-box, remove it immediately. It's likely you'll find an egg in the bottom of the cage or in a food dish soon after the babies wean. If you do, do NOT put the nest-box back in the cage! Instead, you need to remove the egg immediately when you see it, boil it on the stove for 20 minutes, let it cool, and then put it right back in the cage on the bottom grate. You'll need to do this immediately to each new egg that she lays, so pay close attention checking the bottom of the cage and the food dishes twice a day, once in the morning and then again at night. She won't start laying on the eggs in the bottom of the cage until she lays at least 2 or 3 of them, but make sure that you are boiling each individual egg as soon as you see it laid and then just placing each one back on the bottom of the cage together (NO NESTING MATERIAL/BEDDING AT ALL!)...just lay the boiled eggs right directly on the grate on the bottom of the cage. Once the female realizes that they aren't going to hatch she'll stop laying on them, and then you can just remove them and throw them away once you're sure she's no longer laying on them. Hopefully this will knock her out of breeding-season and stop the egg-laying. Never put a nest-box or any type of nesting material/bedding/wood chips/ boxes/"huts"/tents/blankets or towels, etc. in their cage again, as all of these encourage their hormones and she'll only start laying eggs again...And just be sure for the future to simply boil any eggs you find in the cage and then place them on the bottom for her to lay on and eventually get bored with, then pitch them.

 

[Yasmine]

Hi! I forgot to mention, there is a cuttlebone and mineral block for them that they use whenever they need it. Thank you for your reply! I’m glad to be getting all of these tips

 

[Allee]

Yasmine, thank you for offering a home to a pair of budgies and their little ones. I wish you and the feathered family the best, please continue to share your story.

 

[LordTriggs]

well I think it's safe to say the last thing you should worry about is being yelled at! Why someone would yell at someone for rescuing a family of budgies who were going to be dumped is beyond me

Looking at everything so far you've done really well and luckily momma and papa are doing their jobs well too. Make sure you keep a good rapport with the vet in case anything goes on with the babies. I would also possibly try to start looking for some good homes for the babies unless you plan on keeping the family together, in which case I would look into getting a huge cage for them all and definitely remove and boil any eggs that happen in the future to avoid any inbreeding between them

 

[Scott]

Thanks so much for saving these birds from an unknown and possibly tragic end. With a bit of luck the parents will continue to feed the chicks to a point they are mostly self-sufficient.

We love pictures, especially of babies! If you are able to snap images, you'll find uploading via a photo-hosting site such as Imgur to be easy!

 

[Yasmine]

Here’s a pic of the three babies

 

[Owlet]

I don't know much about baby budgies but those look much younger than 2 weeks. Google is showing me 2-3 weeks would have a good amount of down and pin feathers at that point. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. Where did you get the 2 week estimate from? Honestly that smallest one looks as if it's only a day or two old. Again, I could be completely wrong though as I'm not entirely familiar with budgies

 

[EllenD]

Yeah, they are still very young, no older than a week or so...Keep in-mind that they are laid a day or two apart, and they hatch a day or two apart, so none of them are the same age, and they grow and develop so quickly that you'll see huge differences between the oldest and the youngest, which can actually be close to two weeks different in age depending on how many total eggs were laid. It looks like there are still unhatched-eggs in the nest-box, so it's still possible that you may get more babies. For example, if you've got 3 unhatched eggs left, and two of them are infertile but one is fertile, and the fertile one is the youngest egg, then there's going to be a minimum of 6-7 days between when the last baby hatched and when the youngest fertile egg with hatch, possibly up to 9 days depending on how many days there were between the mother laying each egg. And judging from how young the babies are, it's quite likely that you'll end-up with more babies hatching.

So keep an eye on that, make sure you're looking into the nest-box at least once a day to check for more babies, and to make sure that the 3 babies that have already hatched are being fed regularly by the parents. You want to make sure their Crops have food in them, at this age they should pretty much always have at least a little food in their Crops at any time of day. It's not at all unusual for the parents to stop feeding all of the babies, or just one of the babies, so it's very important to check all of their Crops for food at least once or twice a day, because if the parents stop feeding one or more of them, then that's when you'll need to be ready to take-over if you want them to live. We can help you with that if it happens; I know you weren't aware of the babies being there so you weren't prepared for them before they hatched, normally you should always have a container of hand-feeding formula, an eye-dropper and oral syringe both, and also either a real Brooder or a homemade one, as they have to be kept at 95 degrees F until they have all their down, and then at 80-85 degrees when they have their down but not their mature feathers. So if you notice that any of the babies have an empty Crop that stays empty for even one day, or if you notice any type of wounds on any of the babies from the parents abusing them, or if the parents kick any of them out of the nest-box, then you have to remove them immediately and get a homemade Brooder set-up, and get some hand-feeding formula, etc. We can help you with all of this if need-be, hopefully nothing will go wrong and the parents will continue to feed them and care for them properly, but if something does go wrong don't panic, just come back here and let us know what's going on and we'll help you out...

 

[ChristaNL]

Cute tiny ones (I agree with the previous two: really, really young stuf there).

I would still offer eggfood asap since it is easier for the little ones to digest and it helps to keep the energy levels of the parents up so the chances are better they will keep caring for the babies.

 

[Yasmine]

Okay thank you guys so much! I have noooo idea how to determine their age so I was just going based on what my friend told me. And can someone help me, I try and check up on them once a day but it gets really difficult with the mom there. I don’t know how to get her out of the nest without scaring her and every time I go near it when she’s out, she I immediately rushes back to protect her babies. I don’t want to stress the mom out so how can I get her out of the nest for a few second to check the crop?

 

[Yasmine]

One more question. I just took this pic right now. I can’t really tell but is the middle egg hatching? Also, is everything looking okay with the babies?

 

[gracebowen]

It's a bit late but yes the middle egg is hatching. How are they?

 

[ChristaNL]

sooooo many babies.... did the egg hatch succesfully??

 

[Yasmine]

No, it did not other than that, they seem to be doing great. They get bigger every day lol

 

[AmyMyBlueFront]

How are the babies doing???

I just love the coloring of Mom! I hope one of the youngsters gets to look like her




Jim

 

[Yasmine]

I need help!! One of the eggs hatched today and it’s crop looks empty and it’s been crying for an hour now and I don’t think she’s fed it. What do I do?

 

[AmyMyBlueFront]

Oh boy! Time to take matters in your own hand? I would call a Certified Avian Vet (CAV) immediately and ask what and how to feed the baby! Time is crucial now!


Jim